tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Nov 21 18:14:07 1996
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Re: Engishization of Klingon (Was: RE: KLBC a phrase about Honor)
- From: Terry Donnelly <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Engishization of Klingon (Was: RE: KLBC a phrase about Honor)
- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 20:14:01 -0600 (CST)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Donald E. Vick wrote:
> > (Am I the only one dismayed by Okrand's musing (threat?) that
> > Klingon orthography might not be alphabetic?)
> What's wrong with that? I for one would be disappointed if they merely
> produced an alphabet. There are so many other ways to represent speech on
> paper, this seems merely lazy, or even cowardly.
On the contrary, it seems efficient to me.
I'll be candid; one reason I enjoy Klingon is that it's really pretty
easy to learn: limited number of affixes, no irregulars, only a few types
of sentence structure. I enjoy foreign orthographies, and I would enjoy
reading Klingon in its "native" script, but I really don't have any
desire to put in the effort needed to learn all the symbols Klingon would
need if it's not alphabetic.
> Due to the structure of most
> words, (i.e. kronstint-vooble-kronstint-vooble) a syllabary would seem quite
> natural.
I count 32 separate phonemes (the consonants and vowels, the "double
vowels" and the combination "rgh"). If my math is correct, you'd need
4,619 syllabic characters to represent all the possible C-V-C
combinations. Seems kind of daunting to me.
>
> taDI'oS vIq, law'wI'pu'vaD Holtej jIH
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Thaddaeus Vick, Linguist to the Masses | [email protected] -or- |
> | | [email protected] |
> | gules on a saltire argent voided azure | |
> | thirteen mullets of the second. Yeeha. | http://www.crl.com/~dvick |
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>
-- ter'eS